


Seven Things I Wanted To Say To You

by I_am_lampy



Series: Open Your Eyes [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: As in Sherlock is comforting John, Comfort/Angst, Comforting Sherlock, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Feels, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_lampy/pseuds/I_am_lampy
Summary: John opened the paper. It was from a smallish diary, three ringed and lined, softened with age, folded and refolded so much it was in danger of tearing along the creases. John read it.





	Seven Things I Wanted To Say To You

* * *

Rosie was being very uncooperative. She was almost eighteen months old, no longer an infant but not quite a toddler. She was in her foldable cot whining and thrashing around and then throwing things out of the cot and plaintively requesting John pick it up and give it back. John was trying to pack a bag for both him and Rosie so they could stay overnight at Sherlock's flat.

 _Sherlock's flat?_ When had he come to think of it as solely Sherlock's? Suddenly it felt almost overwhelmingly sad that he would think of it as a place that didn't belong to himself as well. If he had been a little more overwhelmed he thought he might have put his head in his hands and cried.

This thing with Sherlock was confusing as hell for John. Sherlock was unpredictable, to say the least, but he had always been predictable in his unpredictability. After he came back from the dead, though, he had consistently thrown John off. First, he expected Sherlock to run Mary off, just as he had with all of John's other girlfriends. Instead, Sherlock had pushed them together. John had been caught between two immovable forces – Mary and Sherlock.

John had felt like the two of them were conspiring to get him wed to Mary. John had never proposed to Mary – she had plucked the ring out of the box and put it on her finger. And then, because Sherlock was back and because Sherlock had always thought of John as a good man, an honorable man, a man of integrity – because of that, John knew that he could not, under any circumstances, tell Mary he didn't want to marry her and that, in fact, he didn't want to date her or really ever see her again because he was in love with his dead best friend who was now very clearly, vibrantly, miraculously alive.

He couldn't do that selfish and dishonorable thing because he couldn't bear the thought that Sherlock might see into John's eyes and read on his body the things that John had done while Sherlock was away. All the degrading and mortifying things he had done when he thought Sherlock was dead, the downward spiral towards suicide he had been on until he met Mary. Mary had gently but forcefully pushed John back into the sunlight where people did normal things like go to movies or have a pint (or two but never more than that) with someone or kiss someone who wasn't going to –

 _you want me to hurt you, don't you, yeah you like that, you like to be used, slapped around a bit_  –

Nope. John was not going to think about that. He would talk about it with Sherlock soon, not now maybe, but soon, because he wanted to confess everything. He wanted Sherlock to know every sordid, shameful detail because only then could he really believe that Sherlock knew him for what he had been when he thought Sherlock was dead. That John Watson was just as much of him as the other John Watson, the one that Sherlock found so amazing.

Mary had known about Sherlock. John had told her that he was in love with him and that he had committed suicide not knowing that John loved him. Mary had known about all the men who John had submitted to over and over to punish himself. Mary had guessed about some of it, of course, because like Sherlock, she knew how to read someone's secrets on their face and body. At the time that John had spilled it all out, like a penitent to a priest, contrition and disclosure all bound up in one nonstop litany of sins, he had never guessed what would happen between him and Mary nor that Sherlock would come back from the dead.

It was Mary, again, who had led John from a platonic relationship to a romantic one. John had been pliant and broken and had followed without question. There was no reason _not_ to have a relationship with Mary. Sherlock was gone – dead and buried – and John's sexuality was no longer black or white. He hadn't been attracted to men at all before Sherlock but, of course, he'd never put himself in the position to be attracted to a man nor had any man ever shown attraction to him.

And then he met Sherlock and suddenly everyone presumed there was something between them and it had grated at him, this automatic assumption that they were together because they lived together and did everything together. The day they met, first Mrs. Hudson happily not judging and then Mycroft, snidely, as though loyalty and admiration automatically meant you were fucking someone. And Sherlock had never corrected anyone, not ever. All the times that John had said _I'm not gay_ , Sherlock had never bothered correcting them. _Oh, we're not together_.

The fact that Sherlock had never corrected anyone had made John more and more stubborn about insisting that he wasn't gay, even long after he knew that he was at least gay enough to be in love with Sherlock. And then, of course, after Sherlock was gone and dead, or so John thought, it was largely a defense mechanism, a way to keep from saying _I loved him and I'm broken because of it and I can't think about it and I can't remember it because I would keep breaking_.

And then – Mary. After secrets had been revealed and Sherlock and Mary had still pushed John to stay with her, John's bitterness towards her (and Sherlock) had grown. His resentment was huge by that point. He wanted to scream at her _I told you everything, every fucking horrible shameful secret and you kept all your fucking secrets and then you used him, you ruthlessly used this amazing man I adore so that you could keep me, keep what you wanted_. She hadn't trusted him and she never did. There were many ways in which she was different from Sherlock – gender, of course, but that hadn't mattered to John anymore – but the most important way she was different was that Sherlock trusted John and John trusted Sherlock. It was the two of them, against the world. Mary was always herself against everything else.

They had suffocated him, Sherlock and Mary, so much so that sometimes he couldn't breathe because of their insistence that he and Mary were destined for each other, it was meant to be, there was a happily-ever-after somewhere.

And of course, on top of Sherlock's pushing and Mary goading him on, while John flailed and drowned, was the fact that Sherlock had come back from the dead and the two of them had brushed it under the carpet. John had punched him a few times and then they had pretended it had never happened, that things were just as they'd always been.

Sherlock had fallen and taken everything that mattered to John with him. When he came back, the secrets that John had from the dark time between Sherlock's fall and his return – keeping those secrets wasn't an issue of trust. It was self-preservation. He knew if he confessed any of it that Sherlock would know. He would see it written all over John's face, that John was in love with him and he couldn't do that. First, because he was with Mary. Second, because after Mary died John was burning with toxicity, fiery with resentment, scorching with bitterness.

 _I could have had you_ , John had wanted to scream at Sherlock in the mortuary that day, beating him, kicking him. _I could have had you when you came back but you pushed me together with this woman I didn't even want anymore!_ If he had said no to Mary if he had ended it the minute Sherlock had come back, he could have been with Sherlock or at least told Sherlock the truth and let the card fall where they might. Instead, he had fallen back on honor and duty, wanting to be a good man for Sherlock, to be that man Sherlock respected. So he had married her and then she was pregnant. She was supposed to have been on birth control. Another lie. All lies, all of it.

An abrupt wail from Rosie interrupted his thoughts. He rushed towards her, startled by its intensity. He picked her up and immediately knew. She was burning up with fever. Something she'd picked up at day care of course, but babies just got sick several times a year, _four to six_ his doctor's brain reminded him. John felt a flash of guilt for being angry at Mary for getting pregnant on purpose because he would never give Rosie up, not in a million years. He would rather Sherlock have stayed dead than to not have Rosie and Sherlock knew that. He knew Rosie came first before anyone.

Rosie had felt fine when he picked her up from the day care center. A bit fussy but one of the caregivers, a woman named Trish, had told him she hadn't gone down for a nap easily and once down hadn't slept well. As a doctor, John knew that most illnesses, especially the ones that sucked really hard, were viruses. Cold viruses, flu viruses. When fevers and symptoms came on suddenly, it was almost always a virus. Bacterial infections snuck up on you – except for food poisoning – but viruses struck fast and hard. So he was almost one hundred percent sure that Rosie just had a virus, however miserable it might be making her.

 _Still_ , John's father- _and_ -doctor brain told him, _you have to check her ears, her throat, make sure it's not bacterial_. First, though, he had to text Sherlock and let him know. He really hated not being able to see Sherlock. He wanted to drown in Sherlock right now – had since the shocking and glorious moment Sherlock had actually kissed him yesterday. He wanted Sherlock to do all the filthy things to him that he had let other men do for those nightmarish eighteen months before Mary had pulled him back from the brink. He wanted Sherlock to erase it all and replace every millimeter inside and out of John with himself. He wanted Sherlock to physically own him.

And then, one day, he wanted to give it all back to Sherlock. For now, though, he didn't know how to be the – _giver_ , for lack of a better word. He had been a receptacle, a vessel, a hole to use – God, he had to stop thinking about it. He needed Sherlock to help him carry all these terrible small and large burdens of John's shame and self-hatred. He was still so very exposed and terrified and angry. Sometimes he yelled at Rosie and she was just a baby and it fed into that self-hatred and belief of himself as uncontrollable and therefore worthless and – and unlovable. _Christ_.

His hands were trembling when he picked up the phone to text Sherlock. He pulled up the messaging app and suddenly stopped. He stopped and took a deep breath and called Sherlock instead.

"What?" Sherlock asked in his usual brusque way that John found painfully adorable.

"Rosie's sick," John said. His voice was unsteady. Dammit. Sherlock would think he was lying to avoid him. "She was fine this morning and she was fussy but not feverish when I picked her up but now she's burning up. We can't come over. I – there's no way to anticipate how fussy she'll get or how well she'll sleep or what she might need."

John paused and waited for Sherlock to say something.

"Sher –

"I can be there in thirty-six minutes via the tube," Sherlock said and John knew he had taken the phone away from his ear as soon as John said they couldn't come over so he could map a route.

"Really?" John asked, not knowing he had wanted Sherlock to come here until Sherlock had said so. He wondered if Sherlock had somehow known that John wanted him here – _needed_ him here.

"Will I be staying overnight?" Sherlock asked in that detached voice he used when he was trying to gather facts together in order to plan.

"Do you want to stay overnight?" John asked slowly.

"I want to be with you as much as possible," Sherlock said in that same voice, and even spoken without emotion it sounded achingly romantic.

"Yes," John said. And then, "Please." He could hear the completely exposed need in his voice. And then it occurred to him – "Will it bother you, then, if it's – because obviously I sleep in the bed that Mary and I – "

"Does it bother you?"

"I don't know," John said. "I don't have any data on that. We could sleep in the guest room if it's a problem."

Sherlock chuckled and then said in a voice that scorched a path straight to John's groin, he said, "I want to sleep in the bed that smells like you."

"Yes, of course," John said a little hoarsely and he knew that what Sherlock really meant was _we are going to erase everything from your bed except the two of us and claim it for our own_.

"Give me ten extra minutes to pack a bag. I'll see in you forty-six minutes," Sherlock said.

The call ended as John had known it would. Sherlock never said goodbye. He said _fine_ or _okay_ or _be there in forty-six minutes_ and then hung up.

John tended to Rosie while he waited, almost quivering with anticipation, for Sherlock to arrive.

 

* * *

 

"What can I do?" Sherlock asked the minute he walked in.

John surprised him, and himself, by pushing Sherlock up against the door and kissing him viciously, hands grasping and roaming and fingers clutching and digging. John couldn't explain his sudden need and then, of course, he could.

"I just – I can't tell you how grateful I am that you're here," John panted.

The smile that broke out on Sherlock's face was half delight and half smugness. He tossed his bag on the couch without breaking eye contact with John and then slid his arms around John's waist and crushed John against him and then he lowered his mouth to John's ears, who twitched with barely restrained lust and then twitched again, like Sherlock was stroking his bare nerves.

"What else can I do to make you grateful?" he murmured into John's ear.

Then he lowered his mouth underneath John's ear, his teeth scratching and then biting, gentle then hard. Then his lips and tongue sucked, and John knew he would have a huge bruise that would take three or four days to fade but he didn't care. Let everyone in the world know that Sherlock Holmes had marked him and, furthermore, Sherlock Holmes could do anything he wanted to John, anything at all, and John would be grateful for it.

Sherlock gently pushed him away and a strangled whimpering noise escaped him and he blushed, his face burning.

"Oh, that's – this blushing thing you do – Jesus Christ, John." He took a deep breath and then said, "Now where's our little disease vector?"

 _Our?_ John thought, something bright and hot blooming in his chest. He didn't say it out loud for fear that Sherlock would think he was correcting him or that he didn't love it, adore it, worship that word falling from Sherlock's mouth. _Our?_

"She's, uh, upstairs," John said and tilted his head towards the stairs. "I've given her some Calpol to lower her fever. It worked fairly quickly and she was exhausted at that point. It's going to be a very miserable few days for her, though. That reminds me. I'll need to call into work and – oh, God, I probably have nothing to eat in the house. At least nothing for adults."

"John," Sherlock said, his hand cupping John's cheek. "Give me your keys. I'll get some things for the next few days. If you think you can't go in on Friday, I'll stay with her."

There was a note in Sherlock's voice that John had never heard before. It was a _nurturing_ tone. John looked down at the floor and then squinted up into Sherlock's eyes.

"Are you trying to take care of me, Sherlock?" John asked, unable to help the teasing note in his voice.

Sherlock rolled his eyes but then gave a tiny self-deprecating smirk. "I'm just trying to be helpful and supportive. Isn't that what boyfriends do?"

"Huh," John said, pursing his lips. "I had no idea you were my boyfriend."

"Well, what else would I be?" Sherlock asked and then his eyes flashed with fear before settling into a frown. "Are you saying – "

"Stop," John said and roughly patted his cheek. "It feels inadequate to describe what you mean to me but I'll take it."

Sherlock tried to hide a smile but failed.

"Make a list and give me your keys. Not a long list, mind. I'm not your housekeeper."

They both looked at each other with eyes wide with surprised laughter.

"So just this once then, dear?" John asked before laughing and couldn't get the ridiculous grin off of his face even after he'd stopped laughing.

"Something like that," Sherlock said. "Now, where are your keys?"

"Through the kitchen. Hook next to the door to the garage."

"Okay. And, uh – well," Sherlock said, sticking his hand into the pocket of his trousers. There was something naked in his face and John wondered if they would ever get past this point where opening up felt too raw, too painful. "This is for you."

He shoved a piece of paper into John's hand and then stalked off through the kitchen without saying anything else.

John opened the paper. It was from a smallish diary, three ringed and lined, softened with age, folded and refolded so much it was in danger of tearing along the creases. John read it.

_Seven things I wanted to say to you:_

_I came back to life for you_

_I crossed the line for you_

_I was ready to die for you_

_I never wanted to leave you_

_I wish I hadn't run away from you_

_I can't live without you_

_I love you_

**Author's Note:**

> I always welcome emails from readers about anything that tickles your fancy, even if it's just randomness!
> 
> archiveofMYown@gmail.com  
> Teddy


End file.
